Mas has evolved from the scat­tered groups of spon­ta­neous street mer­ri­ment and bac­cha­nal of the 1920s and 30s, to the lor­ry mas and ping pongs of the 40s, to the gold­en age of cos­tumes of the 50s and 60s, to the takeover of the mas by the mid­dle class­es in the 90s and ear­ly 21st-cen­tu­ry, to the roped-off sec­tions, a sort of “lor­ry mas” on the ground, of to­day’s well off youth, the en­ti­tled.

It’s not un­ex­pect­ed that the North Stand has par­al­leled this evo­lu­tion, from the mass par­tic­i­pa­tion of the pub­lic of the 80s at Panora­ma, to to­day’s es­sen­tial­ly “roped-off” so­cial sec­tions, re­served for “cor­po­rate cus­tomers.”

Two re­cent let­ters to the T&TGuardian make top­i­cal read­ing. The first, pub­lished on Feb­ru­ary 6 by Or­son Rogers, is ti­tled “Roped-off mas kills Car­ni­val spir­it.” Mr Rogers says, “The orig­i­nal re­bel­lious, open and peo­ple-dri­ven na­ture of Car­ni­val is be­ing re­placed by elit­ism and com­mer­cial­ism.” He goes on, “It goes against the orig­i­nal street-par­ty spir­it of Car­ni­val, where every­one was meant to cel­e­brate to­geth­er.”

Truer words were nev­er spo­ken.

Sharon Carew in the T&T Guardian of Feb­ru­ary 19, in re­fer­ring to the North Stand au­di­ence of to­day, states, “You have lost your way in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly and cul­tur­al­ly when you en­cour­age cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship to cre­ate such a neg­a­tive shift in the cul­tur­al are­na …

”You do not care about the vibe that em­anates from our cul­ture when you push aside the peo­ple. Yes, you have pushed away the peo­ple.”

Yes, peo­ple are be­ing pushed away from their fes­ti­val.

It is pan on the Drag and mas in the street that de­fines Car­ni­val. The sweet­ness of life in T&T has al­ways been re­volved around the in­ter­ac­tion among Tri­nis, in par­tic­u­lar street com­men­tary: smart, sexy, jokey, sting­ing and al­ways to the point. Car­ni­val is no ex­cep­tion. It was ex­hil­a­rat­ing to step away from a band and buy food from a ven­dor, share a smile and a small joke or cut­ting re­mark about some­one pass­ing. Trinida­di­ans are noth­ing if not gen­uine­ly fun­ny. It made one feel aching­ly hu­man, in­te­gral, part of the whole. Even search­ing out a place to piss was part of Car­ni­val.

Once you elim­i­nate that con­tact with the peo­ple, you di­min­ish the mas. Take away peo­ple try­ing to sell a beer or a corn soup at the side of the street, take away the tra­di­tion­al char­ac­ters and the limers and the crowds lin­ing the streets, what do you have but a mov­ing street con­cert?

J’Ou­vert is an­oth­er ex­am­ple of the de­gen­er­a­tion of the fes­ti­val. The “Art of J’Ou­vert” en­com­pass­es the prepa­ra­tion for J’Ou­vert, the mak­ing of your cos­tume, the plac­ard that de­scribes it, the words to sing along, whilst know­ing that the act of play­ing J’Ou­vert it­self was go­ing to change up every­thing you thought you were go­ing to do, as the ac­tions of oth­ers af­fect­ed your mas.

Old-time J’Ou­vert was about in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty, char­ac­ter and per­son­al­i­ty. It was es­sen­tial­ly male-ori­ent­ed with a fe­male brush. And it was about every­body. A good J’Ou­vert char­ac­ter brought the watch­ing pub­lic on the pave­ment in­to the mas, phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly.

From the six­ties to the end of the cen­tu­ry, you could play J’Ou­vert any­where, but best in a steel­band. Dressed in your “dut­ti­est” clothes, your group, main­ly close male friends of any per­sua­sion, eth­nic, re­li­gious, po­lit­i­cal, lo­cal and for­eign, would go look­ing for a steel­band, com­ing down Tra­garete Road in dark­ness, ar­riv­ing around 6 am at Green Cor­ner in time to see the sun blaze up over the Laven­tille Hills, all the while the tenors thrilling, the base heavy and steady, the steel, clam­orous and in­ces­sant, the shuf­fle of mut­ed feet on road­way, the sense of ca­ma­raderie, chip­ping steadi­ly, sip­ping rum, hug­ging up old friends.

To­day, it’s about or­gan­ised “bands.” Some need in­vi­ta­tions. It’s about fe­males, dressed up in the same way. At its worst it’s about sep­a­ra­tion. You, alone, in your “cos­tume.” Even ”mud mas” is now about spe­cial mud, per­haps to be im­port­ed from Chi­na.

The idea that you can play J’Ou­vert or mas in an “all-in­clu­sive band” and avoid con­tact with the street is rep­re­hen­si­ble to me. It is a throw­back to “lor­ry mas” that the white elites played in the for­ties and ear­ly fifties. Now, the young brown-skinned elites play “mas” in ex­clu­sive, roped-off “bands.” They are not bands, they are VIP fetes that move on the road, to­tal­ly iso­lat­ed from their sur­round­ings.

That is Las Ve­gas not Port-of-Spain. Rio not Char­lotte Street. It’s what you do on the street that counts at Car­ni­val.

At mas time, the street is made for peo­ple. Those in roped-off sec­tions with their concierge ser­vice, feet mas­sage, toi­lets to pee and air-con­di­tioned tents should try to un­der­stand this as they prance to the en­thralling mu­sic of our new crossover stars.